Richard Stallman came to Vancouver, and I upset him

Richard Stallman was in Vancouver two weeks ago.  He performed, if I may describe his lectures like that, three times; I caught the first.  I asked Stallman a question after it was over, and thoroughly annoyed him.  I know that I annoyed him because he grew flustered, stamped his feet, turned away from me to the rest of the crowd and yelled at me.

Richard Stallman’s claims to fame are manifold.  From writing the emacs text editor (for you Windows-only users, there are text editors out there, which are designed for programmers, that show Notepad to be a genuine embarrassment to Microsoft), to being leader of the GNU development team, to founding the Free Software Foundation and being the free software movement’s chief evangelist, Stallman, or rms (as he prefers to be called), is a legend in the software world.  rms is equally well-known for his temper, his unsociable behaviour, and the monorail upon which he drives the train of his thoughts.

“Enough, Jeremy,” you are saying, “What did you ask him that made him stamp his feet, pump his fists, and otherwise react like a six-year-old who was told that he has to do his homework before he watches television?”

Before I tell you what I asked him, I have to tell you about Stallman’s lecture.  I found it very interesting.  I went to the first of three lectures held in various places that weekend.  This first one was at the UBC Faculty of Law, in the mega-hall (101, 102, 201).  It was primarily about the fundamental principles that underlie “free software”.  rms was quick to explain the difference between “free” software and “open source” software, a distinction I have often blurred.  I will do my best, in the future, to maintain this distinction, as it made a lot of sense to me.

Stallman explained the difference in different ways.  There is a language issue.  “Free” has two meanings in English; other languages tend to be more specific.  The distinction can best be drawn using the words “libre” (from French, which shares its Latin root with “liberty”) and “gratis”, referring to the price tag in dollars.  Both open source and free software are gratis, but only free software is built and distributed on a philosophy which incorporates principles of liberty.

There are four freedoms built into free software, built into GNU (Gnu’s Not Unix), and directly, built into the GNU GPL – the GNU General Protection Licence.  In true programmer/rms fashion, Stallman enumerated the freedoms using the code convention of starting with “0″:

Freedom 0:  You are free to run the program as you wish.

This means that you may run it on any system, under any circumstances, for any purpose.  I’ll give you two examples of existing proprietary software terms that violate Freedom 0:

If you purchase Microsoft Office, Academic Version, you agree not only that you are a student or otherwise academically qualified person at the time of purchase, but also that you will not use the software for non-academic purposes (especially commercial) while a student or afterward, and that once you cease to fall into the academic qualification (for example, you graduate), you will either purchase a new general license or uninstall the software.

If you purchase Mac OS/X as a standalone product and build a Macintosh-compatible computer (which is easy enough to do since they now use PC hardware), you will not install Mac OS on that computer.  In other words, you will not make Mac clones.

Freedom 1:  You are free to study the source code and change it.

Here’s an easy example.  Windows Vista, unlike previous versions, does not let you change the startup sound (unless you know the clever hacks for it).  Why can’t I go in and change it in the source?  Here’s a more detailed example:  Under Windows 2000, XP, and earlier versions, there was a feature called “hardware profiles”.  I could set up two users on my computer; one would be a general user, with both video cards turned on, each powering a separate monitor (yes, I have two video cards – an HD4850 and a built-in HD3250); the other profile could be a gaming profile in which the extra card and monitor (in my case, the built-in 3250) would be disabled, allowing games to run smoothly (many games get confused by independent video cards).  In Vista, this feature was removed, meaning that every time I play a high-end game (one that needs the power of the 4850), I have to go through a few hoops to disable the second video card.  If I could get to the source code, I could try to adapt the code from old Windows to Vista and implement it.  These are but two examples.

Freedom 2 (the third one, for those who weren’t edumacated in coder-counting style):  You are free to help your neighbour, including distributing the software.

Here I’ll illustrate the connection between helping your neighbour and distributing software using Stallman’s example (paraphrased):

You have this awesome program you’re using and your buddy says, “Hey!  Neat program!”  You are now faced with the following choice of evils:  Either be a bad friend and say, “Yeah, it is, ain’t it?  But I can’t share it.”  Of course, the argument can also be that there are many things where your friend likes something you have so the logical argument is for them to go buy their own.  But software is different.  I’m not going to get into the debate about whether unauthorized copying is stealing – it isn’t, trust me; it’s unauthorized copying, period – but I’m going to stick to Stallman’s story.  So you have either to be a bad friend, as he says, and deny sharing, or you have to violate your licence agreement.

Open source and free software both allow this freedom.

Freedom 3:  You are free to contribute, including distribution of your modifications.

I’ll give two examples here:

I have an authorized copy of Microsoft Office 2000 Developer Edition sitting in a box.  The main differences between this edition and the Premium Edition are the giant VBA manual, the stronger VBA support, and most importantly, the right to distribute your VBA modules commercially.  VBA is Visual Basic for Applications, a subset of Visual Basic specifically designed for modifying and automating Microsoft Office programs.  When you record a macro in Word, you are using VBA.  Under the licence terms of Office 2000, unless you paid for the Developer Edition ($1700 at retail – you are reading that correctly – one-thousand seven-hundred Canadian dollars ten years ago), you cannot distribute the neat little tools you make for yourself in Office.

Example number two, and I’m particularly proud of this one.  You’ll see a pattern of upsetting the panellists here.  A few years ago, I was privileged to attend the Cyberlaw conference at the University of Victoria.  There was a slate of three speakers who were each to present and discuss in the morning, and then sit on a panel together in the afternoon.  One was Professor Bob Howell of UVic, a well-known intellectual property academic and libertarian.  He is a friend of the professor who brought me to the conference; Bob and I have since become friends as well.  Another was Professor Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa, who holds the Canada Research Chair in E-Commerce and Internet Law, and is largely responsible for mobilizing the citizenry against draconian copyright reform in Canada.  I got to meet Michael personally that day too.  The third panellist was an esteemed IP litigator and adjunct professor, famous for his stance in favour of far-reaching protectionist policy.  He and I got into an argument that day.  I asked him if his stance would suggest that I broke the law when I advertised my 1977 Volvo for sale as having a 55-amp alternator, an improvement over the stock 20-amp that blew up when faced with all the junk I plugged in.  He said that if I didn’t have an improvement patent, I was violating patent law, and subject to prosecution or at least a civil suit.  I modded my car, out of necessity, and later sold it (for a whopping four-hundred bucks, half of what I paid not including the hundreds in maintenance and improvement).  Stallman probably would have shrieked at this lawyer and gone bananas.  As I was in a public forum and but a student at the time, I argued politely that the lawyer’s suggestion was unreasonable.  Fortunately, sitting in front of me, a man with curly hair who’d not yet spoken and to whom I’d not yet been introduced by my professor, took to my defence and gave the litigator the debate equivalent of a tar-and-feathering.  Of course, that was Michael Geist.  The afternoon panel consisted of Michael and Bob, as the litigator suddenly remembered a lunch appointment he’d scheduled during the allotted panel timeslot.

Those are the four freedoms of libre software.  Free software, according to Stallman, incorporates a democratic freedom not necessarily embraced by open source.  Ironically, as a friend pointed out, the “copyleft” convention created by Stallman and embedded within the GNU GPL, which ensures (read: enforces) the heredity (to use another programming term) of the four freedoms is itself a restriction, and a possible violation of freedom.

Stallman’s answer to questions regarding what one does when there is no free option for a given task was to develop it oneself.  Here it is important to note a bit about the audience.  Despite being held in the Faculty of Law, it seemed that a very large contingent of the audience – certainly those who were vocal in one way or another – was comprised of programmers and not legal specialists (law students or law graduates).  This is interesting because not only did it show that there was little opposition to the absurdity of Stallman’s stance on re-inventing the wheel regularly when the vast majority cannot do so, it also meant there was little discussion of his next point:  “Intellectual property” is a misnomer and not only provides an umbrella for unrelated concepts – Stallman believes that copyright, trademark, and patent have nothing to do with each other – but the term is anathema to him and should never be uttered.  “Intellectual property” is Voldemort, and the utterance of it should be met with fingers in the ears and an “I can’t hear you” response.

I agree that there is a great conceptual disparity between the three main legal concepts to which IP refers.  Trademark is about goodwill and brand recognition; patent is about invention and innovation; copyright is about creativity and author’s rights.  Intellectual property as a term also brings the principles of property law to bear upon concepts that should not really be considered under the property rubric.  I argued this in a short satirical paper for Prof. Steve Wexler.  But that does not make the term anathema.  Stallman’s fervent opposition to the term is zealous, religious even.

There were many great things that Stallman suggested, especially if one tempers them to something negotiable.  He suggested campaigning for free software in schools.  Actually, he suggested dropping any class or rejecting any school that doesn’t exclusively use free software, or at least allow its use in competition with proprietary software.  I think that for us normal folks, that means negotiating and suggesting free software as an alternative.  He suggested rejecting the term “piracy” as well, something with which I agree.  But that doesn’t change the fact that the term is widely used, and the process of undoing the branding of unauthorized copying as “piracy” is a slow and difficult one not easily accomplished by histrionics.

Now we finally get to the question.  I use the term “intellectual property”.  I use it despite my objections to it because reality is what it is, and I studied IP extensively, and I continue to study and write about IP.  I studied copyright (including moral rights and neighbouring rights like performance rights and photographic rights), patent, and trademark.  I studied licensing, digital rights management and various concepts of the commons.  That’s a long list, and most easily referred to by the term “intellectual property”.  It’s not perfect, but it works for now.  As far as the disparity between the types of law involved, there is a common thread between them, which is the intangibility (until fixation, and even that does not adequately deal with the issue) of the things we wish to protect, which are products of human creativity, or thoughtful work.  I decided to play Stallman’s game anyway, or so I thought.

I asked him, after the lecture, if the public conflation of patent and copyright under the term intellectual property could not be used strategically to further the aims of pro-sharing copyright reformers.  I suggested that restricting the innovation principle to patent undermines the efforts to bring pro-innovation reforms to copyright.  Without it, we are considering copyright to be purely a protectionist regime favouring the authors forever.  Alternatives to that are grounded either in the pro-innovation theory, or the public trust of cultural material theory.  In either case, putting patent and copyright under one umbrella allows pro-commons reform to further its cause.

Stallman went bananas.  He was not only upset that I used the term “intellectual property”, though I apologized for it and said I was using it for lack of a better umbrella term, but he stated that it’s all about sharing.  I agreed that sharing was an important ideal in this but that the strategic manipulation of the public conflation of the underlying principles of copyright and patent could be used to advantage.  rms was vehemently against strategy, and said he didn’t understand the legal concept of a trust (this from the man who authored the GPL – he could’ve asked and I gladly would have discussed it further as I think it goes well with his pro-sharing philosophy).  The mission had to be a pure crusade, not only motivated by pure ideals, but executed without any Machiavellian stratagems like this.  This is where he and I differ.  He stamped his feet and got angry at me, demonstrating the child-like maturity of those who would reform copyright to a better system as perceived by the pro-protection lobby.  I prefer to negotiate in a way that will be heard, and may actually accomplish something at a policy level.  I would’ve liked to discuss further, but you can’t talk to a grown man who acts like that.

It’s too bad.  I wanted to like Richard Stallman.  I thought he said a lot of good things, and had a lot of interesting concepts to discuss.  But it was not a discussion; it was not even a lecture.  It was a diatribe.  If the great luminaries of the Information Age can be likened to a pantheon, then surely they are just as jealous, petty, and immature as the Greek gods.  There was jealous ranting about the rift with Linus Torvalds, unwillingness to discuss the Word of Stallman, and a general childishness packaged along with his genius.  I learned a lot, but I was also disappointed.